Pope Pius V

Born Antonio Ghislieri in 1504, he became an inquisitor with a reputation for putting orthodoxy above everything - prosecuting bishops for heresy, blocking nepotism so fiercely he rebuked a sitting pope to his face. Elected in 1566, he spent six years implementing the Council of Trent's reforms and standardizing the Roman Rite into what became the Tridentine mass. In 1570 he excommunicated Elizabeth I for heresy. The next year he brokered the Holy League, the Catholic alliance that met the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto and won against the odds. Biographers say that as the battle ended, Pius rose from his desk, walked to a window facing east, and announced the victory before any messenger arrived. He died in May 1572, venerated as a saint.